The Fifteen Streets

by Catherine Cookson

  ‘Yes, hinny?’

  ‘Don’t worry about John; he’s going to be happy, so very happy.’

  ‘How can you tell, hinny?’

  ‘We know about those we love. Go home now, Ma.’

  Katie’s lips rested on Mary Ellen’s and the sweetness of them pressed down into her being . . . the sweetness like a gentle perfume was in her nostrils when she opened her eyes.

  ‘Katie, hinny—’ She put out her hand, gropingly. She could not see Katie, but something stronger than reason told her she was there. She whispered again, ‘Katie, hinny,’ then looked towards The Virgin. She was as she had first seen her, yet different, for her face seemed to hold the knowledge of all eternity.

  Katie and Christine were all right . . . they were with her. It did not enter Mary Ellen’s head to question how Christine—the spook’s daughter—could be with The Virgin, who, above all others, was a Catholic first and the Mother of God after.

  Smiling gently to herself, Mary Ellen left the church. Katie was happy, oh indeed she was happy—and everything was going to be all right for her lad. Katie had said so.

  The ghoulish picture of Katie floating in deep water that had filled her mind for weeks had gone—Katie wasn’t there—she knew where Katie was . . .

  Going homewards Mary Ellen walked with a lighter tread; there was an urgency in her to reach the house and tell Shane, although how she was going to tell Shane about Katie without him thinking her completely mad she didn’t know. But Shane needed comfort, and if she could tell him in a sensible way that she had seen Katie she had no doubt that he would feel as she did now. She hurried up the backyard, ignoring the dead fire under the washhouse pot and the mounds of unfinished washing, and entered the kitchen. Shane was there, sitting in his armchair beside the fireplace, while opposite him sat the lass. Mary Ellen had never met Mary Llewellyn, but there was no need for anyone to tell her who this was.

  Bright spots of red burned in the dull colour of Shane’s cheeks: ‘I told the lass to stay—you wouldn’t be long.’

  Mary rose to her feet and watched the little woman unpin her hat and hang her coat carefully behind the kitchen door. She had not spoken, and Mary began, ‘I hope you don’t mind, Mrs O’Brien . . . I wanted to talk to you.’

  ‘Sit down, miss,’ said Mary Ellen with strange gentleness, ‘you’re quite welcome. Can I offer you a cup of tea?’

  ‘Please; I should like one.’

  Mary Ellen pressed the kettle, which was standing on the hob, further into the fire. At the same time Shane rose, saying, ‘I’ll be lying down for a while.’ He left the kitchen without glancing at Mary—it was as if she had been there always and was likely to remain. The room door closed behind Shane and the two women were left alone.

  Mary Ellen, filled with a growing awe and wonder, silently placed the teapot to warm, and unhooked the cups from the back of the cupboard and put them on the table. Oh, Katie, Katie. Can this mean what you said about John’s life? She dare not look at the lass in case she should disappear as Katie had done.

  ‘How is John, Mrs O’Brien?’

  Mary Ellen was forced to stop in her trotting to and fro and look at this woman, whom her lad loved. She said simply, ‘He’s not too grand, miss.’

  Mary turned her gaze towards the fire, and after a moment asked, ‘Do you agree with his decision?’ Then before Mary Ellen could make a reply, she turned to her again and went on rapidly, ‘Please believe me . . . I understand . . . I know that you have only him now to look after you, and I want him to do that always. But that is no reason why we should be separated—is it, Mrs O’Brien? We care for each other—very deeply, and there is a way out if only he would listen to reason.’

  ‘You can’t marry without money, lass.’

  ‘Did you wait until you had money?’

  Mary Ellen shook her head. ‘This is different . . . you’re different. He’d want money to give you a home.’

  ‘I don’t want that kind of a home, Mrs O’Brien’—Mary leaned forward and took hold of Mary Ellen’s hands—‘the solution is for me to come and live here. I must show him that I can do it. There are always empty houses going, and I could continue my work. Even if I didn’t, I have a little money, enough to keep us a couple of years, living simply . . . How much is the rent of these houses?’

  ‘Four and tuppence.’ Mary Ellen, her hands locked in the soft firmness of Mary’s, was trying to measure the cost it had been to her lad to give up this lass, whose charm was already telling on her . . . Aye, but it wouldn’t work out. She would never be able to stick it here; it would strip her of everything but the capacity to regret . . . Yet why should she stick here? Wouldn’t John fight with every fibre of his being to take her out of this? That is, if she persisted in coming here and persuaded him to marry . . . Peter Bracken’s gone, the house next door is empty . . . It was almost as if Katie was at her elbow—the voice in her head was Katie’s. She remained still, listening to both Katie and the lass.

  ‘Will you help me, Mrs O’Brien? I can assure you that you’ll not suffer for it. Please, Mrs O’Brien, do help me. I want to come and live here, somewhere near. He will know nothing about it until it’s done. I must show him that I can live here successfully . . . will you?’

  ‘There’s a house empty right next door, lass.’ It was as if Katie had nudged her. ‘It was the Brackens’ you know . . . the lass . . .’

  ‘Yes, yes, I know . . . Oh, Mrs O’Brien, tell me what to do. Who do I see about it?’ In her excitement Mary stood up, and Mary Ellen, her mind suddenly filled with doubt, turned away and mashed the tea. Would John want to live in a house where the lass Christine had lived? . . . She seemed to hear Katie’s laugh tinkling again as it had done in the church. Now it was deriding her superstitions, and Mary Ellen set down the teapot, and turning back to Mary, said resolutely, ‘I’ll do anything to see my lad happy; although I’d better tell you, lass, it’ll be hard for you . . . at the very best it’ll be hard going.’

  ‘You doubt that I’ll be able to stand it?’

  ‘No, somehow I don’t. If you care for him enough it’ll keep the iron out of your soul.’

  With a sigh that swept the tenseness from her body, Mary sat down again. As she took the cup of tea from Mary Ellen, they smiled at each other and a quietness settled on the kitchen as they sat drinking and thinking, their thoughts in different channels but flowing the one way.

  The flat cart was at the door—a clean, respectable flat cart, but the sight of it and its import had prostrated Beatrice Llewellyn. She lay on her bed, faint with rage and self-pity. There was rage, too, in James Llewellyn’s voice as he talked to Mary from the doorway of her room, moving from time to time to allow the removal man to pass. He only spoke in the man’s absence, talking rapidly to get in all he had to say.

  ‘You’ll regret this to your dying day . . . do you hear me?’

  ‘I hear you.’ Mary, with her back to him, went on lifting books from the shelves and packing them into a tea chest.

  ‘You don’t know what you’re doing—you can’t! Why, woman, the scum of the earth live in the fifteen streets—he’s not a man! No man who could lay any claim to the name would ask anyone like you to go there.’

  ‘He hasn’t asked me, he has refused even to see me.’

  ‘And you have so little pride you are going to live there and push yourself on him?’

  ‘Yes, I have so little pride I am going to do just that.’

  The man came in and as he lifted the tea chest asked, ‘Is this the lot, miss?’

  ‘Yes . . . except the two trunks and the cases in the hall.’

  James Llewellyn threw a murderous glance at the unfortunate man as he lumbered past him with the box. ‘Have you got the place furnished?’ he barked the question at her.

  ‘No.’

  ‘No? You mean to say you are going to live there with those few odds and ends?’ He nodded towards the hall.

  ‘I have bought a bed and a table . . . just the n
ecessary things.’ Mary kept her face turned from her father. She thought of the problem the buying of the bed had caused—whether to be modest and buy a single bed, or to be true to herself and buy what she hoped would be necessary. She had not asked Mary Ellen’s advice about this. It was something she had to decide for herself . . . And was she brave enough to face the comments of her future neighbours? for she did not delude herself into thinking it would escape their notice; and she could practically hear their comments on a single lass buying a new double bed. She knew already that the hardest thing to bear in the fifteen streets would be her lack of privacy.

  She had ordered a double bed and by now it would have been delivered. She glanced for the last time round the room, her eyes avoiding her father’s. He was standing, black and massive, filling the doorway. She did not mind her mother’s censure, but his cut deep into her. She would have gone happily to the fifteen streets had he given her some kind word.

  ‘You’ll be the talk of the town—a laughingstock!’ He barred her way, and she waited, eyes cast down, until he would move aside.

  ‘I’ll not be the first, or the last.’

  ‘Your mother’s ill.’

  ‘My mother isn’t ill . . . she’s merely angry, and you know it.’ She lifted her eyes to his. His face was mottled with his emotions, and she could not bear to witness it any longer.

  ‘I must go . . .’ She stepped towards the door, but her father did not move. He stood staring at her, his face working, fighting against the softening emotion that was breaking him down—his lass going to live in the fifteen streets! His Mary, who loved colour, and light and laughter, who was so close to him, closer than his wife, who could reason like him and laugh at the same things. She was going to live in one of those wrecks of houses, just to be near that big docker . . . God Almighty! it was unbelievable . . . Yet he had given her credit for being able to reason like himself. Then could she be so far wrong? . . . Was there something worthwhile in the fellow? Worthwhile or not, she had no right to be doing this. She was mad.

  ‘Mary, lass, don’t go . . . I’ll try to fix something . . . a job or something, for him.’ His face fell into pitying lines of entreaty.

  She shook her head slowly and put out her hand to him, speaking with difficulty.

  ‘It wouldn’t work . . . he’d refuse. This is the only way, to take whatever he has to offer, however small, and make it do . . . Perhaps later—’

  ‘Oh, lass’—he pulled her into his arms—‘oh, Mary, lass!’

  They held each other for a moment, tight and hard. Then, thrusting her from him he went hurriedly down the passage, and Mary, trying to stem the flood of tears, listened in amazement to him barking down the drive at the carrier.

  ‘Come in here, and give a hand with these things.’ He came back, followed by the man, whom he bewildered with his torrent of orders.

  ‘Get that china cabinet out, and that bookcase. And the couch and chair. Then up with this carpet.’

  ‘Father—no, don’t. Listen to me,’ she protested, ‘I don’t want them . . . I must go as I am. It will only make it more difficult. He wouldn’t want . . .’ She stopped. Her father wasn’t listening; he was in a frenzy of action. He passed her, carrying one end of the heavy bookcase, almost pushing the man off his feet, both with his confused orders and force, and she knew she must let him do this for her. However more difficult it would make the work ahead, she must accept these things.

  When the room was at last bare, she walked down to the gate, her father at her side. In deep embarrassment they stood facing each other.

  ‘Well, good luck, lass. I dare say I’ll find my way to see you . . . what’s the number?’

  ‘Twelve Fadden Street.’

  ‘You can always come back, you know.’

  ‘Thanks, my dear.’

  ‘Goodbye, lass.’

  ‘Goodbye.’ It was impossible to say more. Blindly she went down the road. The cart on ahead was a blur, and it remained so until she came within sight of the fifteen streets.

  All afternoon they worked. They cut the carpet, and it covered the floor of the front room and bedroom. The kitchen boards were bare except for two rugs, which to Mary Ellen’s mind were far too bright and grand for such a room. The things the lass had brought were lovely! She was glad the lass’s father had made her take them, for now one of the main problems to the marriage, as she saw it, was removed . . . they were set up. But her happiness in this new turn of events was marred, and it was the statue that was responsible . . . that great white, bare woman, as naked as the day she was born, and standing on a box where anyone at the front door would get an eyeful of her. The lass was respectable, she knew that, and apparently to her mind this naked woman meant nothing except what she was, a statue. But let them about the doors get a glimpse of it, and Mary Ellen knew the result as if it had already taken place. The women would dub the lass ‘a loose piece’, and from the start her life in the fifteen streets would be suspect. They would conjure up the men she’d had, and her lad would become an object of pity for having been caught, and never would the lass be able to pass the corners of the streets without hungry eyes and low laughter following her. If only she could explain to her . . . but it was a hard thing to explain. Mary Ellen knew she wasn’t at her best with words, but actions now . . . yes. If she were to knock the thing flying accidentally . . . She stood looking at it. There wasn’t much time left, for John was due any minute now. Molly was on the watch for him at the corner, and the lass was in the kitchen getting her first meal ready. Well, it was now or never. She lifted her hand and swiped the naked woman to the floor. As it crashed, she heard a gasp, and there, standing in the doorway, her face white and shocked, was Mary.

  Across the debris they stared at each other. Mary Ellen, her face working, tried to explain. ‘I had to do it, lass . . . they would think . . . the women would say . . . They wouldn’t understand around these doors . . . I want you to have a good start.’

  Mary gazed down on the fragments of her expression. The statue had been a symbol of truth to her; a figure indeed of her emancipation from cant and hypocrisy; a symbol of her growing freedom. But now it was gone. Never until this moment had she fully realised what coming to the fifteen streets would mean. She imagined at worst it meant living meagrely. Now she saw that was but a small part of it. To live happily, her life would not only have to be altered from the outside, but from within. Not only her actions, but her thoughts, must be restricted. This little woman had not broken the statue from malice, but from a desire to help her. Some deep knowledge of her own people had urged her to its destruction, and it might be only one of the many things which must be destroyed if she were to suffer this life. Could she suffer it?

  ‘Lass, I didn’t mean to hurt you.’ Mary Ellen’s face was pitiable, and her fingers, as always when she was in distress, picked nervously at the button of her blouse. Had she, with her mad action, destroyed what she wanted most? Happiness for her lad. The lass looked hurt and bewildered. She wanted her off to a good start, but she had achieved just the opposite. She bent her head in an effort to hide the raining tears . . . was nothing ever to go right?

  When she felt the lass’s arms go about her, she leant against her, faint with relief, and felt herself almost a child again as Mary patted her back, saying, ‘There, there! It’s all right. I understand. I should have had more sense than to bring it. Please don’t cry! Just think’—she gave a little laugh—‘if Father O’Malley had seen it!’ They both began to shake, small, rippling tremors, which mounted into laughter; quiet, relaxing laughter such as Mary Ellen never thought to laugh again. Oh, the lass would get by. She knew what to laugh at.

  They both stopped abruptly when a knock came on the front door, and Mary Ellen opened it to Molly.

  ‘He’s coming up the road, Ma.’

  ‘All right,’ said Mary Ellen, ‘you know what to do. Tell him I want him to come in the front way.’

  Without looking again at Mary, she said, ‘We
ll, lass, I’ll get myself away in,’ and she went through the kitchen and out of the back door.

  In her own backyard she paused a moment. Within the next few minutes she would have lost her lad, for she had no doubt that once he stepped inside that door he would be gone from her and another woman would have him. She wanted his happiness didn’t she? Yes, above all things she wanted his happiness. But with it she hadn’t thought to feel this added sense of loneliness. Well, she’d have to turn her mind to the others. Shane, for instance, who needed her as never before. And Molly, who seemed to have been born when Katie died. And Mick, who’d need two steady hands on him to keep him from Dominic’s path. Yes, she still had a lot to cope with. And her lad would be next door for some time yet—Rome wasn’t built in a day.

  Left alone, Mary felt unable to move. There were a dozen and one things she wanted to accomplish before seeing him; among them to change her apron and do her hair. But now she could only stand rooted. A few minutes ago she had asked herself if she could suffer this life. What a ridiculous question to ask, when her whole being told her she could suffer no life that did not hold him.

  The heavy tread of his steps reached her, and she lifted her head to the sound. All the colour of life, all the essence of the music she had heard, all the beauty she had seen and felt with her soul’s capacity, rose in her, and she moved towards the door. Not until she heard the sound of the knocker on his own door did she lift the latch.

  It was some time before he turned his head towards her, and then he did it slowly as if afraid of what he would see. She held out her hand, and he moved towards her but did not touch her. It was she who took his arm and drew him over the threshold and closed the door behind them. Walking ahead of her into the room he looked about him, and his face was drained of its colour. He brought his gaze from the fragments of the broken statue lying by the fireside to her face, and he said grimly, ‘No, Mary. You can’t do it . . . that’s how you’ll end, like that—broken.’